She was the Summer and He was the Winter
by Wolfsong12
Summary: "He could feel her breath -soft and hitched- upon his chapped lips, heightening his senses and chilling him in all the right ways. 3 deafening heart-beats passed and she did not pull back, did not even react, and that was all the invitation he needed." A collection of Dramione one-shots with adequate amount of fluffiness. :3
1. Bittersweet

**Hi guys! :D This is my collection of Dramione drabbles, in no particular order, created mainly because I lack any love life and therefore chose to obsess over the nonexistent romance of two fictional characters (I swear I'm not as much of a loser as that makes me sound...) Each story will be set in a completely different time. Each will be experimenting with characterization of my two dearest Harry Potter characters. ALL will contain a generous amount of fluff. ;D Please enjoy the first installment. :)**

**_Setting:_ Half-Blood Prince, pre-Dumbledore death  
**_**Song suggestion:**_** Ever After by Marianas Trench**

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Bittersweet

There were days when Draco preferred to believe that stereotypes were created simply to be lived up to. There were also days when Draco believed that stereotypes were created to be broken, just as rules were. Then, there were days when Draco believed that stereotypes were absurd and pointless, because really, is there any person who is so completely undimensional that they can be defined by one word? These days worried Draco the most, because it was such a dangerously Granger way to think. Besides, it was a flawed theory- his father seemed to fit snugly into his own stereotype (yet if it was by nature or merely acting, Draco was unsure. He liked to think it was the first, simply because the thought of his father having any sort of emotion made Draco laugh)._  
_

Either way, Draco hated stereotypes.

Because if Draco were to fit into his stereotype, he wouldn't have been found in the astronomy tower at two in the morning, drawing lazy lines with a blue-tipped porcelain finger to connect the stars that freckled the sky. It was a particularly cloudless night, clearer than it had been in awhile- not that he came up here often, or anything. And if Draco were to fit into his stereotype, he wouldn't look so distraught and thoughtful as he severed the imaginary lines he drew with a quick slash of his finger- not that he was stressed, or anything. If Draco were to fit into his stereotype, there would not be a quiet tear betraying him tonight- not that he was crying, or anything.

If he fit his stereotype, he wouldn't have doubts about killing his headmaster.

Slytherins were supposed to be strong, emotionless. Malfoys were supposed to be without weakness and ever so powerful and confident- this, at least, was the stereotype. Draco did not fit into either.

The chill was rather unforgiving that night, and although the wind raked its claws deepily into Draco's bare arms, he did not make any move to warm himself. He had no idea why, in his absurdity, he forced himself to endure the cold. Perhaps it was a form of self-punishment, as little as it was. Perhaps, also, it was for another more cliche, childish, and downright stupid reason- because he craved not any artificial of warmth, but for human warmth.

He wanted to deny it, of course- what a petty thing to want! He grew up without any real human affection, so why now, would he need it so damn much? Why, now, did he want to feel the arms of another around his thinning frame (he was not eating quite nearly as much as he should- with his future victim in the dining hall, how was he supposed to)? Why did he want to feel the traces of someone else's fingertips along the cracks of his stone mask? Why did he want -need- someone to scream to, to cry to, to wrap their hands around his wrist and guide him because he had _no fucking idea what he was doing anymore!_

Yet despite his un-Slytherin want, he refused to call himself weak because of it. He simply called it human nature.

_What a Granger thing to say._

"Malfoy...?"

Draco fought to ignore the little jolts of surprise that coursed through his body. Fought to hide the tears that lined his cheeks.

_Speaking of the devil..._

"Granger," he said in a half-heartedly annoyed voice, weaving in his hatred to mask his disdraught. "It's two in the morning, what in bloody hell are you doing up here?"

"I could ask you the same thing," she replied warily. Draco noticed the shadows beneath her nearly-lifeless, defeated eyes, and the way the freckles on her color-drained face stood out a little more than usually. Her hair was in a disarray and her shoulders were slumped in the slightest. She looked as if she was about to kick him out of the astronomy tower (_him, _the Slytherin prince! He would have hexed her before she had gotten the chance!), but it was then that she seemed to noticed the shiny path of his ghost-tears in the moonlight (Merlin, fuck it, why did it have to be so clear out tonight?) "Malfoy..." she whispered in surprise. He gave her an icy glare, and she quickly rephrased whatever ungodly thing she was about to say. "You...you look cold."

She raised her wand hesitantly, but he automatically pushed it down. "Don't..." he growled.

Such a physical reaction seemed to take Granger by surprise, calling to his attention the proximity of his hands to hers. He could feel the heat pulsing from his fingertips, close enough to trigger the pull in his chest, but too far away to melt the frostbite that was surely going to wither his fingers. "Don't touch my wand, Ferret," Granger answered defiantly, though her attempts at malice were just as pathetic as his, if not worse. He let go of her wand, albeit regretfully, and placed his hands on the railing of the astronomy tower, averting his gaze once more.

Granger lingered where she was for a few heartbeats longer, obviously surprised my his compliance. After a small sigh, she assumed the same position as Draco.

46 heartbeats passed then- their pulses were too loud _not _to count.

"You didn't answer my question, Mudblood," Draco drawled finally, irked by the almost _comfortable_ silence with his enemy's best friend.

"What question?"

"The question I asked you, you basketcase: what are you doing up here? It's against the rules to break curfew. Seems a little odd for a try-hard Gryffindor like yourself to risk your perfect record for this. Are you stalking me?"

"Don't be so conceited," Granger chastised. "I'm up here to clear my mind, just as you are."

"Since when did you know me so well, Granger?" Draco shot back, even though that was _exactly _what he was doing.

"Cut the act, Malfoy. You know just as well as I am that the war is dangerously close. We're _all _stressed out."

Just the mention of the war made the vulnerable Slytherin ache again- the war _he _was going to begin. In the school he was going to breech. Oh Salazar, it was going to be _his _fault. All his fault. Nothing of tonight would ever be the same- the mudblood beside him would surely be killed first, the astronomy tower would no longer act like his safe house, the air would never feel quite as content as it did then, even with the lingering tension. And his place in the war would officially be determined- no Dumbledore to offer him pathetic positions in the Order. Draco will have killed him by then.

He had to resist -actually _resist- _to reach out and grab the witch's hand beside him. He was so lost, so helplessly confused.

"Well, Granger...," he marveled at his ability to keep his voice even. "I'm not able to _'clear my mind' _with your mudblood stench clogging up my brain."

"Alright," she said just as evenly. "I'll leave, then."

He don't know what made him do it- if it was the fact that he knew she would surely die soon, or the fact that he was so confused. Maybe it was even the fact that he was changing so much, he was even willing to find comfort in such a filthy witch. Perhaps it was because he was just that desperate.

In the end, he didn't quite know what made him reach out for her hand, snagging the tips of her deliciously soft, warm fingers, just barely. Just enough. He could feel the tiny pulses embedded in her skin, speeding just the slightest at his own marble-cold hand. "No," his strangled cry was reckless and desperate and hopeless, slicing the air with its intensity and volume. He was purely raw emotion now, too scared to go back to his uncertainty and loneliness that he had immersed himself in all these months. "Please, Granger. Don't go."

She turned to look at him in his pure desperation, taking in what she hadn't noticed, or what she had chosen not to- his eyes were haunted and distraught, emphasised by the bags which hung beneath them. If it were possible for him to be any more pale, she was seeing it. His hair was tousled about and looked suspiciously as if he had tried to rip a handful out. He had lost a noticable amount of weight.

And if he was a flighty as she had always suspected him to be, he was going to be even more difficult to talk to now. So instead of asking why he wanted her_ -her, _of all people- to stay, or why he was so upset, or why he had been crying earlier, she simply said: "Merlin, Malfoy. Are you even aware of how cold your hands are? Are you sure you don't want that warming charm?"

He relaxed slightly, relieved that she chose to ignore his previous outburst. He looked out to the sky again. "I'm sure, Granger."

"You didn't even wear a jacket." She sighed and shook her head. "You boys, thinking you're immune to the cold or something..."

She noted that he had not chosen to let go of her hand, and instead had gripped it harder. His long, thin fingers practically glowed in contrast to her own sunkissed hand, rough against her soft palms. _No doubt because he's so damn cold!_ Yet she couldn't help but marvel at the fact that he, a Malfoy, was holding hands with a mudblood of the Golden Trio. The Malfoy she knew would rather his fingers fall off from frostbite than to come in contact with her. _The war is already changing people, and it hasn't even started yet._

82 more heartbeats passed in the silence- almost double the previous bout.

She couldn't help it. Seeing him so vulnerable, so open- the Gryffindor in her begged to give him another chance.

"It isn't true, is it, Malfoy?" her voice was small even in the quiet. "About the Dark Mark?"

Silence.

"I mean, I didn't see it when I came up here, but I assumed you would use a concealment charm. Common sense. I know your family hasn't been a supporter of the Light Side, and you despise Harry, but you wouldn't... Would you, Malfoy?"

She took a deep breath, ashamed of her ramble, and suddenly very aware of his silence. She glanced upward and saw the tears lining his cheeks and falling steadily, glistening with such wet emotion she didn't know Malfoy was capable of. And it was obvious, then- obvious that he had, in fact, accepted the Dark Mark. But she didn't believe it, she couldn't, no matter how logical the Gryffindor girl was- because here was a crying Draco Malfoy, broken and battered and obviously lost, and he could _not _be evil. He was just...lonely.

"Malf-"

The damned naive Gryffindor-esque concern in her voice finally broke the supposed-to-be-heartless Slytherin prince. All sense of logic collapsed, all barriers fell. Draco Malfoy finally broke into his cravings.

His hands instantly found their way to her waist and the back of her head, drawing her into him. The heat of her body felt deliciously warm, sending shudders of pleasure through his wind-chilled body. He swooped down with all the grace of a feline, pausing when his mouth was only centimeters from her own. He could feel her breath -soft and hitched- upon his chapped lips, heightening his senses and chilling him in all the right ways. 3 deafening heart-beats passed and she did not pull back, did not even react, and that was all the invitation he needed.

His lips collided with her own, rough and needy and raw with emotion and heated desire. The taste of his salty tears mixed with the bitter tang of uncertainty, terror, anger- every emotion which he dared not express out loud, he put into those stimulated kisses. And she reacted tenderly, patiently, lovingly- in every way he needed her to react, taming the beast he became. Giving him back a little bit of his sanity, reminding him of who he was again.

Her hands found his spine and she ran her hands down it, kissing each path with warmth and a certain kind of gentleness he found foreign. Her clothes scratched against his, her knee bumping into his own. He had never been so close to another human in months- and Merlin, did it feel good. For the first time in years, he was warm. He was content.

Too soon did he tear himself away from her. For a few lingering heartbeats, he rested his forehead against hers and relaxed into her arms, stroking her check with calloused palms. But then he reminded himself, again, that the world was particularly cruel to a Malfoy, so he forced himself off of her. He was not allowed to be weak, he remembered, he was not allowed to have weaknesses.

He let his lips hover on hers once more, for no more than a second, before he turned and walked out with every bit of Malfoy-ness that he could muster. Too soon did he crave her lips again. She tasted so sweet.

Hermione watched him leave, two fingers lingering on her swollen lips. Weeks later, she wondered- if fate hadn't worked its ways to the astronomy tower that night, would he have gone through with killing Dumbledore?

And, if she had went after him, would he have resisted the Dark Lord's plans altogether?

But that was later, and this was now, where a bewildered and hopeful Hermione watched the broken Slytherin boy walk away in all his tears.

His kisses tasted bittersweet.


	2. Wintergreen Mint

**A/N: Thanks for the favorites and follows, guys. Reviews are highly appreciated. *Ahem* ;D**

_**Bittersweet **_**was a more serious one-shot, as will this one be. The plans for the next two one-shots will be very...well, strange, to say the least. Oddly humorous. I think you guys will like it, just hang in there with me!**

**_Bittersweet_ was more of the mentality of the situation rather than the dialog, so I decided to make this one mostly dialog to balance it out. Enjoy!**

_**Setting:**_** Yule Ball  
_Song suggestion: _Reckless Serenade by Arctic Monkeys  
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Wintergreen Mint

Aside from the (small) fact that she was best friends with The Boy Who Lived, Hermione was particularly well-known in Hogwarts for her astounding maturity level- a fact that she prided herself in. The secret to such maturity was to remain positive: in her mind, no matter how difficult your situation may be, there is _always_ a logical solution- it's just a matter of whether or not you chose to look for it. She tended to dislike the type of people who did the latter; and that, she assumed, was the main reason why she always had such trouble with Ron.

One night. All she had asked for was _one night _to her own selfishness and indulgence, the kind that sparked jealousy in the pit of her stomach when she saw her friends so casually use and abuse it. She desperately wanted to be like them- to throw studying to the wind, to forget the OWLs for more than two minutes, to...well, to have a _social life_. The only thing that ever really held her back was the fact that a little too much self-indulgence weakens one's endurance for knowledge and makes one's ego fat. Instead of trusting herself with a little indulgence, she restricted herself from any at all. She'd assumed that she wouldn't get asked to the Yule Ball, and had been rightly surprised to be asked by a seductive foreigner- so much so that she'd almost turned down Victor Krum. After a certain amount of squealing from Ginny, Hermione almost said yes simply because she feared she'd go deaf. And besides, she couldn't deny the loneliness she'd persistently felt after she'd spent hours tagging along with the girls of the Gryffindor house, watching them pick out their dresses and noticing the flush in their cheeks and spark in their eyes when someone mentioned their dates.

One night of indulgence, she had decided, would be beneficial.

Then Ron had to go and ruin it, like always.

Hermione didn't know where she had ended up after his horrendous outburst- she had just ran, throwing all logic to the wind in a completely unHermione-like way. By now, she should have been on her way back to the ball to apologize to Harry for worrying him and hinting at Ron that she was willing to accept his apology, lest he offer it. She wasn't quite sure why she hadn't yet; she blamed it on the fact that she had committed herself to abandon the night in self-indulgence. That's why she remained in this strange, unfamiliar corridor, furled in a corner that was just about as dark and moody as she was, refusing to restrain her noisy sobs.

And the very noisiness of said sobs were what prevented her from hearing the footfalls of the tall, lean, silhouetted figure. The blurriness of her tear-sodden eyes were what prevented her from seeing the boy as he stopped abruptly to observe her. What snapped her out of it was the sound of his voice as he casually settled himself into leaning against the wall across from her.

"Dear Merlin, Granger, could you tone it down a notch?" She picked up on his drunkenness in the slur of his familiar drawl. "I could hear you from down the hallway."

Hermione glanced up at the blurry pale blonde figure, hurridly wiping her eyes (and smudging her makeup in the process). "Sod of, Malfoy," she sniffed, glaring.

"Don't tell me to sod off, Granger. You are, after all, in _my _hallway." He smirked. "Actually, a thank you would be more appropriate. Wouldn't want the entire Slytherin house to hear you, now, would we?"

She was in the _dungeons? _Oh Merlin, how could she have been so _stupid, _not even bothering to check her surroundings? "They're all at the ball, you git," she muttered uncertainly.

"You think we'd waste more than twenty minutes at that mudblood-infested _joke?_" Malfoy snickered. "It's not nearly appropriate for shagging. I wouldn't be surprised to see a pair come down the halls any second now- really, the reason you haven't been discovered is because they're too consumed in their broom-closet fucking to concern themselves with hexing the bloody brains out of you. Good thing I'm free," he grinned wickedly, cracking his knuckles. "But the proper question is, Granger, why aren't _you _at the ball? Did the foreign faggot find you snogging Carrothead?"

"No!" Hermione huffed, though her voice cracked a little and she had to swallow a few times to regain her composture. He picked up on it anyway and crossed his arms, his mercury eyes glinting with success.

"Hit a soft spot, did I?"

"It's none of your business, Malfoy!"

"Threesome with Scarhead and Weasel?"

"Shut up!"

"Maybe even the Weaselette was involved!"

"Malfoy, don't you dare-"

"Maybe Weasel got jealous of the ugly bloke, Krum."

"You bloody spoiled _ferret, _I told you to _shut up _before I _hex your arse_ far below even _Voldemort's_ level of _hell_,"Hermione screamed, vocal cords rubbing raw from the strain. Her voice bounced between the hallways, mocking her, making her shift uneasily at her own surprisingly violent outburst. But nothing made her more uneasy than the complete shock that now settled upon the cold face of Draco Malfoy.

"A little taunt today, are we, Mudblood?" he finally answered, managing a sneer.

"It's none of your business," Hermione whispered delicately, feebly. She shook her head a little, then a little bit harder, rattling her innards and sending her vision spiralling into vertigo. "Even if Ron did get jealous, it's none of your business. Even if he got mad at _me _(I'd tell you to imagine that but it's none of your business either), _he _got mad at _me _for wanting just one perfect night- not that I'm going to tell you any of that. It's not fair at all, Malfoy; it's not fair to be the mature one of the group- don't you dare think that concerns you, either, though." Her voice rose and shook with passion and raw sorrow that she _knew _she shouldn't be exposing: least of all, to Malfoy. "I'm the one without the social life a normal teenage girl, the forgiving one, the patient one, yet all I do feels so futile- but it's none of your fucking business, so keep your nose out of it!"

She was surprised, then, to find a hand on her back. She looked up sharply to those two hurricane-colored eyes, a little hesitant and awkward as he knelt beside her. She should have got up. She should have left. She should have threatened him to keep this a secret. She should have hexed him for laying a finger on her. Instead, she found herself leaning into his uncertain embrace.

She blamed it on the fact that she had committed herself to abandon the night in self-indulgence, and maybe a little bit of the vertigo that suddenly began to rattle her brain again. He blamed it on the firewhiskey.

"Do you have any idea how this feels, Malfoy?" Her voice, although resentful and bitter, was small and childlike. "...to grow up so fast? Never being able to enjoy what other teenagers get to enjoy because I care too much about the future?"

"The future," Draco muttered at last, voice laced with malice towards the very word. "Life has _become_ the future, Granger."

"What do you mean?" Hermione asked, glancing up at his face- thoughtful and quiet and not at all Malfoy. Attractive, almost. In his arms, she was surrounded by his surprising enticing scent: wintergreen mint, delicious undertones of pine...like Christmas, almost. Nothing like the masculine scent she hated so much (one that all of her close male friends desperately tried to intimidate with colognes and spells, and quite honestly gave her a headache).

"Every moment of your life is lived for the future-you go to school, so you can get a good job, so you marry a suitable pureblood, so you can keep the line going, so you can send your children to school, so they can marry a suitable pureblood." He drew in a shuddering breath and leaned a little further into her, muscles relaxing slightly under Hermione's head. "Nobody lives in the present, anymore, Granger. That's the problem."

"But trying to achieve so much right now is so futile," Hermione whispered. "Being a teenager is so futile. Nobody takes us seriously, and I have to prepare for the time when they begin to. But I want to enjoy my teenage years so much, Malfoy. It's embarassingly cliche, but I want to live like a normal girl, go on normal dates, have fun.." She blushed a little, dropping her gaze to her wringing hands before admitting in an even tinier voice, "I haven't even had my first kiss yet."

She felt Draco shift beneath her and felt for certain that he was going to get up, to mock her, laugh in her face. She turned her head away from him and ignored the tears of shame stinging her irises. She began cottoning her ears in preperation for his insults.

Rather than mocking her, she felt his slender, icy fingers slide beneath her chin and yank her head towards him with a kind of force that simultaniously remained gentle. His supposed-to-be-emotionless eyes were fierce and passionate and every bit concerned as he drank in her features with such ferocity that she found herself feeling violated in an almost _pleasant _way. She wriggled a little, opening her mouth to protest quietly, when he spoke again. Gently. "Don't, Granger, don't fucking say anything, okay? Just let me do this. It's a favor."

He lowered his forehead against hers softly, caressing the curve of her nose with his own as he sunk himself lower, stopping just milliliters from colliding. He paused for a minute, her hitched breathing to mingle harmoniously with his own. His fingers traveled from her chin to the back of her neck and he pulled her into him, lips crashing into lips, shattering the peace with a sudden desperation that sent a jolt of shock through her veins and to the tips of her fingers. She responded automatically, wrapping her arms around his back; he answered by deepening their kiss furiously, growling. The feeling of his cool, soft lips sent delicious shivers down her back, which in turn sent her senses to a high she'd never experienced before. She moaned unwillingly, and he took this opportunity to slide his tongue into her vulnerable mouth. The harshness of these kisses, the need to leave an imprint on her, sent her sprawing to the ground. He spilled over her, running a hand through her hair and drinking in her taste.

She turned away and gasped for breath. His lips traveled to the arch in her neck, fervently desperate to mark her as his own, sucking enough to leave a swollen red splotch that was sure to last for weeks. "Malfoy...," she whispered. Her voice brought him back, and he drew himself onto his elbows, studying her swollen lips and affectionate eyes with approval. He slowly leaned forward again, and Hermione's pace jumped as she anticipated another kiss, but found herself strangely disappointed as his lips brushed the sides of her cheek instead (obviously, it was the hormones that had left her craving another snog).

"Being a teenager is not futile," he drawling deeply, carrying on their previous conversation with a ragged breath, as if he did not awknowledge the fact that he had just snogged the bloody hell out of her. "Just look at all you've already done, you damned oblivious little bookworm."

He pressed his lips into her check before pushing himself off the floor, smirking deviously with raw lips. He ran a hand through his tousled hair, his suit askew, before turning and vanishing down the hallways.

Just like that.

Hermione shook her head in disbelief, bringing her fingers to her own tender lips. Years later, she'd determined that he was the best snogger in her life.

she blamed it on the fact that she had committed herself to abandon the night in self-indulgence, and maybe even the vertigo that left her head spinning afterwards. She blamed it on the hormones and her distraughtness at Ron.

But there was no excuse for the way she began to carry with her the strangely enticing scent of wintergreen mint, with a delicious undertone of pine...like Christmas, almost.

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**Props to the people who recognize where I got the structure of the 'living in the future' lines from. DFTBA to you guys! ;D**


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